I am a weird organic life form. Not entirely perfect. I walk by the wall.

October 4, 2016

by raince

Hello, peeps!

I might have transformed myself into a variety of versions today. I guess that’s what college does? Force you to do something you don’t want to do.

Anywayssss.

I had an exam today. That I did not study for. Which proved to be the best choice because it was the weirdest possible wtf-is-this-even-are-you-serious-I-did-not-spend-one-entire-semester-for-this-bs exam. You see, we have this subject called Translation and Editing of Texts. Throughout the term, we discussed all about tips and whatnot regarding how one can become a translator; mostly even accompanied by activities we are asked to do translations (LIKE THAT CURSED NOVEL I TRANSLATED *triggered* Okay, Cy, take a chill pill *eats biscuits* There, better) and so it was almost an insult that we were given this for our finals.

Our professor for this class is Ma’am M. Good ol’ Ma’am M. Of course, our meetings with her wouldn’t be complete without a few rants- this time about our class. She complained about how we were taking her for granted blah blah blah. Bottom line, she didn’t want to handle us next semester. Great. Too great. That leaves us two choices: either we’re going to be handed to Dr. H (I do not want to be turned into a Christian, thanks but no thanks [she gives us Bible verses every meeting and consumes an hour of discussion of that verse]) or Dr. G (she’s old, really old). So, help me, God. Or Nature. Or me. Probably the only person who can help me is myself. So, Cyrene, help me.

Okay, back to that exam. Seriously, Ma’am M. How do you expect us to take you seriously if our finals for this course we had with you is this: 1) Write down 5 original jokes in English and translate it into Tagalog. Provide analysis; 2) Write down 5 original jokes in Tagalog and translate it into English. Provide analysis.

What the actual fudge.

You can imagine the horror that rippled through the class. Like, wut. JOKES? Is this an actual joke? But she looked serious about it, so we had no choice but to comply. I stared at the paper for at least five minutes before I came up with the idea to put a bracket on numbers 1 to 5 and write “Cyrene Garcia. Analysis: I’m a joke. This is a joke. Hahaha.”

But I cannot afford to fail, peeps. I cannot. Soooo. I tried thinking of jokes to translate. I failed myself, but not my class. I’ll share with you two of the jokes I wrote. Yes, they’re offensive to human kind:

English → Tagalog

English

Emcee: Any Chinese people in the house tonight?

Audience: Wooooh!

Emcee: Wow. Look at them yell out their last name.

Tagalog

Emcee: May mga Instik po ba tayong bisita ngayon?

Manonood: Wooooh!

Emcee: Grabe! Ipinagmamalaki talaga nila apelyido nila

ANALYSIS:

Coz I’m cool like that.

2. Tagalog→ English

I used a lot of the jokes my dad told us when we’re eating dinner so you could say this was inspired by my good old man.Also, I could make an entire book out of dad jokes.

Tagalog

Dad: Ano ulam naten ngayon?

Mama: Sopas.

Dad: Ah, so mabilis pala kainin.

Mama: Bakit naman?

Dad: Sopas.

English

(Sopas doesn’t have a direct translation in English so I had to change some words here to retain the context of the joke.)

Dad: What’s for dinner?

Mama: Peking Duck.

Dad: Ah, so I’d eat it quickly.

Mama: And why is that?

Dad: It went, “quick quick”.

ANALYSIS:

GOD, KILL ME.

So, yep. I didn’t even laugh writing those jokes. The fact that Kuya James wouldn’t fit in his chair and was begging to change seats with me made me laugh out loud more. Because our exam area was at a preschool classroom because our actual assigned room was too convenient for exam administrations. But downside of the preschool place, chairs there were of course, designed for kids the age of five. Kuya James is the size of two full-grown men. Also, I ate with friends after the exam. Ate more than I should but I needed to refuel, people!

Anyways. That was my day at school.

I also went pirate mode when I got home. That made me so seasick that I fell into a deep sleep.